Cosmic music. Correlations between music and cosmos-related ideas across ancient cultures (original) (raw)
Related papers
Cosmological Aspects of Ancient Music.pdf
Zenélő Őskelet, 2015
The music has deep cosmological aspects backing to archaic times. The following study seeks to find answers to why relationships were formed in ancient music culture between cosmology and music. Cosmological contexts of ancient arts may seem atmost poetic for the modern man. The whole knowledge of cosmology and astrology got to the consciousness of human kind by intuitive channels, which was consolidated to practical knowledge by thinking and empiric cognition. Since the ancient works of arts were made in a different form of consciousness, their cosmological aspects cannot be interpretable in our paradigm. The important cosmic pillars that are important to man in his life are the celestial bodies that have been well observed since ancient times, the Moon, the Sun, the planets, the stars, and of course, the Earth from which we look. The basis of the ancient cosmological view is that one sees the celestial bodies as a cosmic manifestation of existence and life. In this celestial world, the Sun, as a source of all life, played a particularly important role, and this privileged status created cult. For man Sun was considered to be as Deity, but also the whole cosmos to be as a living entity. For man, the cosmos was a sacred being. He sensed the phenomena of the outside world, tied to the cosmic aspects. It is based on the consciousness of the spiritual and physical unity of the Universe and its own being. In the archaic times, man had fully experienced his unity with nature and was in close contact with the cosmos. The decisive presence of the Sun and its importance to man in the corresponding periods of the day, expressed in music. In Eastern classical music, this tradition remains. At certain times of the day, only certain pieces are played. Over time, not only music but cosmic relationships have become more and more complex in man's life. In fact, the musical, mood-adjusted adjustment to the times of the day means harmonious tuning of the emotional life of man to the cosmological aspects of the world. In the organic system of relationships, the celestial bodies are obviously connected with the whole being of man, with all the moments of earthly life, as the voice world is related to the human soul, there is also a connection between the cosmos and the sound world. The sound world is a projection of physical reality that directly affects the human soul. This is why perhaps the music is the most direct passage between man's inner spiritual world and the outside world, connecting the inner cosmos with the outer cosmos
Star Music The ancient idea of cosmic music as a philosophical paradox
MPhil Thesis at Canterbury Christchurch University. This thesis regards the ancient Pythagorean-Platonic idea of heavenly harmony as a philosophical paradox: stars are silent, music is not. The idea of ‘star music’ contains several potential opposites, including imagination and sense perception, the temporal and the eternal, transcendence and theophany, and others. The idea of ‘star music’ as a paradox can become a gateway to a different understanding of the universe, and a vehicle for a shift to a new – and yet very ancient – form of consciousness. The ancient Greeks had a holistic form of consciousness, which was continually intermingling with a transpersonal dimension. This ancient state of consciousness was related to a musical understanding of the world, the Pythagorean-Platonic experience of the universe as an ordered cosmos. My research is approached from two angles, namely from the history of ideas and from musicianship, exploring how music is reflected in the world of thought. By reflexive re-reading of the sources, new insights into the nature of musical consciousness are explored. The idea of ‘star music’ can be found throughout the history of music and thought in the West, including Plato’s works and that of other ancient philosophers, through the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Romantic era and the twentieth century up to contemporary New Age music. As a conclusion, the paradox of ‘star music’ is connected to an experience of a shared transcendent meaning of music, which can be present in the moment of a musical performance. ‘Star music’ is a living paradox.
2009
The ancient Greeks knew : the universe sings. Since Pythagoras, astronomy and music follow paths that intersect. For centuries, scholars speak about and musicians compose works that attempt to capture the cosmic harmony. Is it myth or reality? In this International Year of Astronomy, music couldn't ignore their complicity ; although the musicians are rather concerned by the astrological interpretation of celestial events. Here are two works inspired by astrological mythology: Orion (1979) by Claude Vivier , and The Planets by Gustav Holst (1918).
Pythagoras Musica Universalis Theory in Global and Human Perspective.docx
The purpose of this research is to reveal the link between the notions of “music” and “universe” in the framework of Pythagoras “harmony of the spheres” concept as well as in the light of scientific discoveries of 20-21st centuries. The study was conducted through the analysis of various literature sources from both Eastern and Western perspectives, alongside with the use of NASA video and audio recordings, obtained by the means of advanced technologies. The research establishes key achievements in the field of speculative music through historical overview underlining the significance and international recognition of Pythagoras’s “musica universalis” theory. The analysis results in the paradigm, which proposes an innovative outlook on the notions of “music” and “universe”, their correlation and correspondence to the traditions of Antiquity, as well as their application to both global and human scope.
Música, os Fenómenos do Universo e o Ser Humano na Tradição Pitagórica Comunicação apresentada no simpósio temático Arte e Esoterismo Ocidental. Congresso Lusófono de Esoterismo Ocidental | Lisboa | 7 a 10 de Maio 2016 A palavra " estotérico " vem do Grego esoterikos, sendo o comparativo de eso, que significa " dentro de ". Parece que esta palavra terá sido usada primeiro na obra de Luciano de Samósata. Como área académica, o Esoterismo abarca campos de investigação que se centram no estudo de um vasto conjunto de movimento religiosos ou filosofias cujos membros em geral se separam das tradições e grupos estabelecidos. Ao longo dos séculos, autores têm especulado sobre a ligação entre música e cosmologia. Nesta comunicação propomos examinar o trabalho de pensadores que se debruçaram sobre a relação entre a música e os fenómenos do universo e do ser humano, na tradição pitagórica, desde a Antiguidade clássica até ao Renascimento tardio, onde ocorreu o dealbar da revolução científica. Palavras-chave: tradição pitagórica; esoterismo; cosmologia; música. The word " esoteric " comes from the Greek esoterikos, being a comparative form of eso, with signifies " within ". This word seems to have been first used in the work of Lucian of Samosata. As an academic field, Esotericism encompasses the areas of research that focus on the study of a vast array of religious movements or philosophies whose members in general distinguish themselves from established traditions and groups. Throughout the centuries, authors have speculated on the relationship between music and cosmology. In this communication we propose to examine the works of thinkers who dealt with the relationship between music and the phenomena of the universe and the human being in the pythagorean tradition, from classical Antiquity to the late Renaissance, where the dawn of the scientific revolution occurred.
Cosmic dance. Correlations between dance and cosmos-related ideas across ancient cultures
Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry, vol. 14, 3 (2014), 307-317, 2014
Humanity’s integration into the cosmos is fundamentally shaped by the perception of structured celestial movements: the rotation of the celestial sphere and the various regular paths of celestial bodies. Participating in these cosmic regularities has been an objective of human cultures since ancient times. Reproducing their structures may serve to participate in their power and to manipulate or to stabilize their effects. Dance as a rhythmic pattern of movement is a cultural expression especially prone to re-enacting the structured cosmic movements. Hence, ancient traditions have considered manifold relations between dance and ideas about the cosmos. Cultural traditions reporting “cosmic” aspects of dances refer to: (1) the dances of celestial bodies themselves, whose interpretations are based on concrete observations such as the apparent looping of the planets; (2) human dances which are in some sense related to celestial bodies or celestial events, e.g. by costumes which equip a dancer with celestial symbols; and (3) the creation of the cosmos, ascribed by some myths to dance, and the repeated ritual renewal, reassurance, and stabilization of the primordial cosmic order through dance. This article on the one hand considers the definition of “dance” and the elements which make dance a “cosmic dance”. On the other hand it considers which astronomical phenomena might particularly fuel the idea of a cosmic “dance”. Examples from different cultures worldwide serve as illustrations.
Musica Mundana, Aristotelian Natural Philosophy and Ptolemaic Astronomy
Early Music History, 2002
Emanating from a cosmos ordered according to Pythagorean and Neoplatonic principles, the Boethian musica mundana is the type of music that ‘is discernible especially in those things which are observed in heaven itself or in the combination of elements or the diversity of seasons’. At the core of this recurring medieval topos stands ‘a fixed sequence of modulation [that] cannot be separated from this celestial revolution’, one most often rendered in medieval writings as the ‘music of the spheres’ (musica spherarum). In the Pythagorean and Neoplatonic cosmological traditions, long established by the time Boethius wrote his De institutione musica, the music of the spheres is just one possible manifestation of the concept of world harmony. It pertains to a universe in which musical and cosmic structures express the same mathematical ratios, each of the planets produces a distinctive sound in its revolution and the combination of these sounds themselves most often forms a well-defined mu...